September 27, 2006

Jihad Car Sale - My Two Cents

I’ve written more than my share of car dealer ads over the past 3 decades. Most of them (until I learned to just say no) were little more than factory incentive drivel that would do little or nothing to drive a consumer into a particular dealership. I think most ads for new car dealers miss the boat. But that’s another post.

From time to time I’d become so crazed about saying the same old thing that I’d write something outrageously stupid jut to maintain my sanity. I’m not sure if that’s what happened at Dennis Mitsubishi last week but they’ve sure gotten a lot of publicity for an ad that hasn’t run.

If you haven’t caught the story yet, Google “Jihad Car Sale” and you’ll find over 1.5 million references to the commercial. Here’s one of the original stories (read).

In the commercial, Keith Dennis of Dennis Mitsubishi talks about "launching a jihad on the automotive market."

Sales representatives "will be wearing burkas all weekend long," the ad says. One of the vehicles on sale "can comfortably seat up to 12 jihadists in the back."

"Our prices are lower than the evildoers’ every day. Just ask the pope!" The ad says. "Friday is fatwa Friday, with free rubber swords for the kiddies."

The ad is allegedly scheduled to run September 28th but a little voice in the back of my head says the whole episode was designed as a publicity stunt. Somehow word of the ad was leaked to the media. Hmm. And tens of thousands of people (including me) have commented for or against something they’ve only heard about from a second or third hand source. Here we have a non-event creating a firestorm in less than a week – Interesting.

The stunt has given Keith Dennis more publicity than any advertising he’s ever paid for – maybe all of his advertising combined. I’m just guessing, but traffic at Dennis Mitsubishi will be higher than normal this weekend. That would seem to be the goal wouldn’t it?

Comments

Well, advertising is everything. even if it's just a publicity stunt, I find that a good ad does more for a business than anything else. I have this software called Glyphius that actually tells me how similar my ads are to ads that are successful, and how much different they are from ads that aren't. Just getting a few good ads makes all the difference in a small business. Even if the ad isn't technically PC, just one good ad is worth millions of bad ones. And look- you're talking about their advertising right now.